Doctor Caber
Dr. James Caber was a master criminal who was active in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. He often fought against his nemesis, world traveller and Billards Club member Joseph Jorkens. Early Life Born in 1883, Dr. Caber was the illegitimate son of John Clay, the master thief, and Urania Caber (alias Urania Moriarty), the daughter of Professor James Moriarty. Under the name of James Caber, Moriarty’s brilliant grandson went to Eton during his teenage years, where he met fellow student Joseph Jorkens. Jorkens was three years older than Caber, but their age discrepancy did not prevent them from becoming close friends. Under mysterious circumstances, Caber was forced to leave Eton. It is probable that he was expelled. Professor Presbury The paths of Jorkens and Caber diverged during their college years. Jorkens went to Cambridge, and Caber somehow managed to inveigle his way into Oxford to study medicine. One of Dr. Caber’s instructors was Professor Presbury, who was conducting experiments to reverse the aging process using a rare serum acquired from H. Lowenstein of Prague, actually Doctor Moreau. Moreau extracted his serum from the langur monkey of India. Presbury confided the nature of his experiments to young Caber. Unknown to Presbury, Caber secretly contacted the man calling himself Lowenstein in order to be supplied with large quantities of langur fluid for his own independent experiments. While Presbury experimented on himself, Caber gave his langur-derived drugs to others. Unfortunately for Caber, Presbury’s activities resulted in a scandal. Presbury’s assumed simian characteristics and wandered around at night like an ape. Sherlock Holmes was called in to investigate Presbury and uncovered the Lowenstein drug connection. Presbury’s experiments ended when he was nearly slain by his own dog (the langur fluid had changed the Professor’s scent). Holmes turned over his discoveries about Lowenstein to Scotland Yard. The subsequent criminal inquiry by Scotland Yard led them perilously close to Caber. Although he was not arrested- and Lowenstein could not be fully traced- Caber was forced to abandon his medical studies at Oxford. Despite its inability to gain compelling evidence against Caber, the Scotland Yard did gain a copy of his fingerprints. Mahara Although Caber never formally qualified for a medical degree, he adopted the title of Doctor. He continued his experimentation with langur fluid, but he abandoned Lowenstein as a supplier. Instead, Caber contacted an international drug syndicate headed by a mysterious unseen Asian known as Mr. King. The liaison between Mr. King and Caber was a beautiful Eurasian named Mahara, also known as “Our Lady of the Poppies.” Caber and Mahara had a brief romantic fling that resulted in a birth of a daughter in 1905. Caber took no interest in his offspring, and left her education to her mother. When Mahara drowned in the Thames while fleeing Scotland Yard in 1909, Mr. King’s criminal underlings took her daughter to Canada where she grew up to be a noted drug smuggler under the alias of Rose Emily Templeton. Henry Lakington and Carl Peterson Before the outbreak of World War I, Caber established a business creating drugs and inventions for other criminal. He took a partner, Henry Lakington, a brilliant young scientist whom he had met at Oxford. The partnership of Caber and Lakington would be disrupted by another warped genius. This criminal was actually Caber’s brother. Born in 1889 to John Clay and Urania Moriarty, this noted felon would use a string of aliases, the most notable of which was Carl Peterson. Caber’s brother had little aptitude for science, but demonstrated great ability in the arts of disguise and organization. Peterson wanted Caber to work exclusively for him inventing deadly devices. Believing that it would be more profitable to offer his services to a variety of criminal clients, Caber rejected his brother’s offer. However, Peterson persuaded Lakington to abandon Caber. Lakington would become Peterson’s right-hand man until his death at the hands of Captain Hugh “Bulldog” Drummond in 1919. Anger at his brother’s recruitment of Lakington sparked family feud between Caber and Peterson. For this reason, the two siblings never collaborated on any major crimes together. Caber's Drugs We know nothing of Caber’s activities during World War I and the 1920’s. Jorkens re-encountered Caber by the 1930’s. At this time, Caber’s experiments with langur fluid had yielded an unexpected result. Rather than reverse the ageing process as Presbury and Moreau had intended, Caber had found a way to accelerate it. For a fee of a thousand pounds, he could add twenty years to a man’s age. He offered this drug to criminals wanted by the British authorities. His argument was that the police would be unable to recognize a man twenty years older. One of the criminals who purchased this service was a vicious murderer named Boran. In exchange for the “old school-tie” of Eton (Caber wasn’t qualified to get one of them on his own), the criminal genius related Boran’s story to Joseph Jorkens. Caber also gave the drug to other felons besides Boran. Service Before the Second World War, Caber had an unusual alliance between the British Secret Service. In 1938, a Nazi spy had uncovered a strategic gap in the British air defenses. The Secret Service hired Caber to plan the spy’s murder before he could communicate his knowledge to Hitler. On learning that the Nazi was guarded by a particularly savage Alsatian dog, Caber gave the Secret Service a drug, which would alter the Nazi’s scent. The Secret Service followed Caber’s instructions and secretly administered the drug to the Nazi. The Alsatian dog killed its master. Although Jorkens neglected to mention this vital fact in the Billiards Club, the drug supplied by Caber was actually the same langur derivative utilized by Professor Presbury in 1903. Just as Presbury’s dog had attacked its master, so had the Nazi’s. Unlike his brother Carl Peterson, Caber possessed no particular animosity towards Britain. While Carl would align himself with any foreign government or financial combine that could possibly bring Britain to his knees, Caber seemed to be more interested in preserving the status quo. Imprisonment Caber checked his criminal tendencies because of the threat of Adenoid Hynkel. In the late 1930’s, Caber discovered a scientific way to control the movements of the moon. The potential for mischief was vast. Caber could influence tides, cause eclipses and so forth. However, he kept quiet about his invention because he felt that the British government needed to crush Fascism. It wasn’t until World II ended with an Allied victory 1945 that Caber tried to blackmail the British government. He only asked for a million pounds, which is a paltry sum if you consider what Carl Peterson or Ernst Stavro Blofeld would have asked for if they controlled such a device. Caber was promptly jailed on an old charge by Scotland Yard, and sentenced to five years. However, Jorkens’ government contacts informed him that Caber would never get out of prison. It is more than likely that the Secret Service arranged for an “accident” to befall Caber in prison. Category:Pages Category:People